


and all this science i dont understand its just my job five days a week

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Dante isn't dead, Gen, Post-Flashpoint (DCU), Short One Shot, post ep 1 season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 17:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12414984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: It makes Cisco so angry that he’s in pain. So amazingly angry. That Barry is in pain and keeps looking at him with big sad sympathetic eyes. Cisco wants to hurt him, wants to start a fight so badly it claws under his skin. He doesn’t want to think about how he wants to punch Barry, wants Barry to punch back, and wants the cutting adrenaline sting and the betrayed look in Barry’s eyes. He wants to feel something on his own terms.Or; Cisco Ramon had two brothers once. Once.





	and all this science i dont understand its just my job five days a week

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sibley (ferns)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/gifts).



I want him  
to suffer  
as I have suffered.

 

I think I could  
fit the sky  
inside  
the hole  
he made in me.

\- Nicola Maye Goldberg, from “A Woman Surveys a Treacherous Mountain Pass,” published in Nailed Magazine

 

Cisco doesn’t know how to feel. He hasn’t known how what or when to feel since he got the call from the hospital about Dante. About the drunk driver. About how he couldn’t see the- couldn’t see him because of how much damage had been inflicted.

It’s like his emotional dial has something jammed up under it that makes it fluctuate between feeling nothing to feeling everything with such blinding pain that it rips a chunk out of him. It's visceral and horrible and then it’s gone and he’s numb.

Cisco wonders that if maybe he had been able to actually look Barry in the eye if he would have realized they weren’t the same eyes as before. The cold eyes that hadn’t wavered when Cisco had begged and sobbed and pleaded for him to save Dante. 

Barry’s eyes now … they hold a kind of bruised pain that Cisco hasn’t seen before. A pain he couldn’t recognize.

And- and it makes Cisco so angry that he’s in pain. So _amazingly_ angry. That Barry is in pain and keeps looking at him with big sad sympathetic eyes. Cisco wants to hurt him, wants to start a fight so badly it claws under his skin. He doesn’t want to think about how he wants to punch Barry, wants Barry to punch back, and wants the cutting adrenaline sting and the betrayed look in Barry’s eyes. He wants to feel something on his own terms and he wants Barry to be forced into feeling it too because something twisting inside of him just wants to hurt.

But _Christ_ this Barry had to kill his own mom. 

This Barry isn’t the Barry from before but he is on some level, he doesn’t have his memories. Is the Barry from the past few months dead? Did he ever really exist? If the other Barry, the one without the bruised soul, was still here would Cisco let the twisting anger inside of him spill out and hurt him? Would he like it? He doesn’t like that he knows the answer to that question. He doesn’t like that he feels like he knows this Barry now better than the Barry of last month. That it feels like his Barry. His. Barry. Is finally looking back at him out of those warm brown eyes. 

He doesn’t like that he’s already let him off the hook. 

Jesus Christ Barry had had to let his mother die. Had been forced to help it happen. _Dios_. 

In a way, Cisco completely understands why he did what he did. On another, louder, way Cisco hates him for doing it. That’s not going to go away anytime soon. 

A lot of things aren’t going away anytime soon.

The anger. The hate. The horrible hum under his skin.

His grief is blocking his powers. He hasn’t Vibed in almost exactly three months. The attacks he used to help Barry took more struggle to pull together than he will ever admit.  
They took a lot out of him too. 

With a groan, Cisco flips over in bed and clutches his head in his hands. Looks like tonight is a no sleep night though. Doesn’t matter how exhausted he is. 

Cisco is very tempted to make himself a rule, a hard limit that he in no circumstances can cross.

He can’t let himself be Barry’s best friend again. 

Because of that- that place, that space where he existed was amazing. Being Barry’s best friend had been like sunshine and rollerblading too fast down a hill because the laughing hurts your throat in a good way and all the best chocolate. Being Barry’s best friend had been so close to being Barry’s something else, and it was such a soft wonderful boundary that Cisco hadn’t minded every baby step they took across it.

But now Cisco isn’t soft or warm. He isn’t addicted to being Barry’s something anymore. He’s gone cold turkey. And if he goes back-

He rubs a hand down his face and sighs.

He isn’t the same person. There is a very him possibility that he will never be able to go back to the warm soft spaces he had made himself. Even the ones outside of Barry.

He hadn’t stepped foot in Jitters in weeks. 

It’s been even longer since he went to his favourite candy shop.

He hasn’t cleaned his apartment. He hasn’t changed the bed and he barely washes his clothes. Barely showers. 

He’s not warm anymore.

He wonders if that should be a scarier thought.

He wonders about Reverb.

Reverb. He knows everything and nothing about him. His powers tell him he had two brothers just the same as Cisco did. Only both of them died on the same day and his parents followed leaving teeny tiny Reverb all alone. Alone and angry. Cisco can’t remember being anything but sad after Armando died. He doesn’t even think about his parents most days. 

He thinks about Reverb, and how angry he is. 

He thinks about Anakin Skywalker. 

I didn’t take much for him to become Vader. It was building his whole life, just waiting for him to be scared and angry enough. 

Cisco doesn’t want to be that kind of angry. He wants to be angry like Leia, who burned with so much rage and turned it into something good. She led an army, defeated galactic fascists. 

And here Cisco lies, choking on his anger and unable to sleep.

He thinks about Reverb. Did he know he was going to be a bad guy? Hell, did he see himself that way? Reverb was probably the hero in his own story. He didn’t see himself turning in to Vader. Or maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t care.

He thinks about his two dead brothers.

He thinks about what he would do if he was able to bring them back only to have to engineer their deaths to save the world. Would he do it? Barry-

Cisco punches his pillow and rolls out of bed. He strides to the window and yanks it open, desperate for a breeze. Desperate for a cigarette. He never smoked but Dante did and now that’s all he can think about. He hangs out the window and clutches his head in his hands. No breeze comes, the air hanging muggy and close to his skin. 

There is a van parked across the street. As he watches it shifts, shudders to life and then drives away.

Cisco hangs out the window until the sun comes up. Then he gets dressed and goes to the lab, panting for a fight and praying he doesn’t snap and start one.

He’d already lost one brother. Why wasn’t that enough?

…

“Your brother is a dangerous individual, Mr. Ramon. This much is undeniable. Our top experts have determined the parameters of how destructive he could be and we are not comforted by the results.”

“He is angry. Rightfully angry. He thinks his brother is dead.”

“And he needs to continue thinking that.”

“My brother-”

“Will remain unharmed for the duration of your employment, as stipulated in our contract,” the elegantly dangerous woman smiles and it’s all teeth, “I think you will find death to be quite freeing, Mr. Ramon. I have.”

Dante watches as she stands and leaves his room. His cell. 

He watches and thinks about his brothers. One dead and one in danger. He tips his head back and closes his eyes.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thinks or prays to the dead one and the living one too, _I’m sorry I wasn’t a better brother_.

**Author's Note:**

> I just got my old hard drive back and I found this! I think I wrote it for Bette so here you go, friend! Hope you like it (sorry if there are spelling mistakes im too excited to post this!)


End file.
